


On Dr. Lalonde's Parenting

by bramblePatch



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Archived from Bramblepatch Blog, Bad Parenting, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Gen, Meta Essay, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 20:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16878408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblePatch/pseuds/bramblePatch
Summary: Originally posted to my Tumblr September 2017. Another look at Mom Lalonde's parenting in the light of Hiveswap.





	On Dr. Lalonde's Parenting

You know, beta!Roxy’s parenting style suddenly makes a lot more sense in the context of her having seen the specific ways that Jake Harley was a shitty parent and deciding to avoid all of his mistakes as hard as possible.

You can’t really build a functional relationship with another person, let alone a person who is dependent on you, by focusing on  _not_  doing things. Even if the things you’re  _not_  doing are objective negatives. Not being a specific flavor of shitty parent doesn’t automatically shake out to being a good parent.

I’d definitely agree that Rose was neglected, but she was neglected in an entirely different way than Joey and Jude were neglected. Rose self-isolated because she was showered with so much generically positive attention that she stopped trusting it, and Roxy either didn’t understand  _why_  Rose was withdrawing, or didn’t know how to fix it, so she just doubled down. Roxy hid a lot of aspects of her life from Rose and presented an empty caricature of domestic motherhood as hard as she could to try to compensate, and all it taught Rose was that  _she_  ought to hide anything she cared about at any depth, too. Roxy kept the house so spotless that any area that isn’t Rose’s private space seems almost sterile, and the constant senseless housekeeping made Rose uncomfortable moving around her own home. None of these mark a healthy relationship! But they do all read as reactionary overcompensations for Jake Harley’s behavior toward his kids - the frequent extended absences, the passive exposure to his “trophies” which Joey, at least, seemed deeply upset by, the complete emotional distance with which he treats them, the lack of concern for their living conditions.

(And sidebar, but with how Joey doesn’t know anything about her long-term babysitter’s family and doesn’t feel comfortable asking but suspects that it’s not a happy situation? Yeah, I agree with Joey’s suspicions; Roxy probably didn’t have a lot of good parenting role models at home, either, whoever was raising her.)

The point isn’t “not being Jake justifies Roxy’s parenting,” it’s "a lot of healthy interpersonal dynamics are learned skills and the new canon contextualizes why Roxy doesn’t seem to have learned them despite appearing to have good intentions.”


End file.
